Thank You
by qob1986
Summary: After being humiliated by her husband, Mercedes must pick up the pieces of her life. Sam decides to lend a hand. AU Probably just a 1-shot


**Disclaimer: Own nothing. Don't want to own anything. Too much responsibility. Not enough naked men...(and if there's not enough naked men, what's the point)**

**This story was discovered late last night in a forgotten file on my computer and I barely remember where I was going with it. Hopefully you guys will let me know when I go too far off the rails with it.**

* * *

"Come on, come on, come on…." Mercedes muttered under her breath, frantically pushing the elevator. Tears threatened to spill down her face but she refused to let loose where she could be seen. Where He could see them. She refused to give him that satisfaction again.

Before a scream of frustration, hurt and anger could rip out of her mouth, the elevator doors opened and blessed be, the car was empty. She hurried in, pushed for the ground floor and quickly hid in the corner of the elevator, out of view.

The second the doors closed, heart-wrenching sobs wracked through her like a faucet that had sprung a leak. She cried the cry of grief, of sorrow. The cry of heartbreak.

Lost in her sobs, she barely took notice of the ding of the elevator bell, indicating each floor was passing. It wasn't until the doors opened that she realized that the last ding had been to signal there was a passenger wanting to get on.

Quickly turning to face the mirrored wall so they wouldn't see her tear-soaked face, she didn't look at the new passenger. She struggled to hold back her tears until she reached her home.

Her home. What a joke that was. A home was warm, comforting. A home had family, people who would love you, no matter what. What she had waiting for her was a mausoleum, a place where love went to be buried.

The love He felt for her certainly had.

With that one thought, the tears began to fall again. This time, there was no stopping them. Completely devastated, she didn't have the strength to try to hold them in.

She felt a large comforting hand on her back. She didn't even have the sense to be startled. The way she was feeling now, she could have been held up at gunpoint and it wouldn't even register.

She heard a voice say "hey, are you alright?"

A fresh batch of sobs attacked her and she began to cry in earnest now. Her whole body shook with despair. She kept facing the wall, wishing that the office she just left wasn't in a high rise with a slow elevator.

She felt those comforting hands on her shoulders, gradually turning her around. She offered up little resistance. Without a word from this stranger, 2 arms encircled her and pulled her close, enveloping her in warmth. Mercedes melted into the man's embrace.

She vaguely heard the doors behind her open and close again and again. As she calmed down, she realized that the man had bought her time to get it together by pressing each floor. Between that and the slow speed of the elevator, she had a few minutes to recuperate.

She could smell the faint smell of sawdust in his shirt. The shirt may have been clean but it was well-worn. There was no aftershave or cologne on him. He smell like a man.

He began soothing her hair with his hands, offering murmured words to aid in his comfort of her. Even though the voice was muffled in her clogged up ears, the tone told her that this was a person acting out of concern for her. Of course, he could also be trying to rob her or feel her up like a pervert.

"_It'd be worth it"_ she thought. What is a designer purse and watch and a few hundred dollars in return for comfort when she really needed it?

Mercedes didn't believe this man would take advantage of her like that. There was something about him. She couldn't put her finger on it. She felt…

What was the word? She felt…

Safe.

* * *

Sam had never been good with crying women. His realization upon entering the elevator car was that the current occupant was ejecting sobs like bullets from a machine gun. He tried to stay his distance but he noticed that she attempted to control her crying, probably as long as it took. He admired her strength. He felt as though she still wasn't feeling altogether, so he asked if she was ok.

It was like he turned on Niagara Falls with a wrench.

Tears poured out of her and gut-wrenching sounds came out. Sounds he had never heard a woman make.

Unsure of what to do, he did what he did best: he went with his gut. Surmising that she still needed some time to get it together, he pressed all the buttons between their current one and the ground floor on the panel.

He gently turned her around to face him and waiting to see if she would stop him, wrapped his arms around her slowly.

"_Damn she feels good"._ He thought to himself. He always enjoyed the feel of a soft, rounded woman and she was certainly that. He felt as though he could hold on to her for a long time yet. He murmured calming epithets to her in an attempt to help her. He stroked her hair, the way his mother always had when he wasn't feeling well. He sucked in a breath as the unbidden memory of his mother holding him while he was sick came to him in a flash.

Shaking his head, Sam banished the memory and focused on the woman in his arms. The ground floor was coming up but he didn't want to let her go. Silently, he thrust his hand in his pocket and pulled out a pack of Kleenex. Unwilling to let her go, he attempted to open the pack with one hand. Eventually, she noticed and pulled back from his embrace to let him finish what he was doing. He sensed her trying to withdraw and every fiber of his being screamed to not let her go, but he didn't want to scare her. He pulled a tissue free and instead of handing it to her, he began to softly clean her face of tears and runny mascara. He completed his task just when the elevator opened its doors on the ground floor. He crumpled the tissue in his hand and they both exited the box. Without a word, they walked out the front door and into the bright sun. Sam turned to her and felt his breath whoosh from his lungs.

In the lighting of the elevator, he saw that she was a pretty woman even making allowances for the tear-streaked face and the swollen eyes. He felt her curves when held her and she held appeal for him just from that brief encounter. Now that she was outside in the sunlight streaming across her face, he was struck almost dumb with the beauty that was the woman in front of him.

Chocolate orbs framed by dark lashes sat just above a cute little button nose that beckoned him to kiss it to make all her problems disappear. That's all he wanted to kiss until he got a good look at her mouth. Any trace of lipstick was gone and he was thankful for that. That luscious, full mouth needed nothing to help draw attention to it. It was enough by itself to make his normally comfortable jeans feel like a vise on his cock. He quickly tore his eyes away from her mouth and ran them back up her face.

He daren't look any further down.

She hadn't really looked at him and still hadn't said anything. He knew he had a meeting in the very building he just exited but he didn't want to leave her just yet. He wanted...no, needed to know she was all right. Until he had that particular piece of information, he had every intention of staying right where he was. He wanted to know what had happened to make such a beautiful woman so sad.

* * *

A minute passed and she took a deep breath and let it all out. That simple action seemed to wake her up to the fact that she was outside and the man from the elevator was still there. She was surprised to see him there and even though they had just met, they had been more intimate than she had been with Him for the past 3 years.

'_At least I know why now...Bastard.'_

__Mercedes gave the man a good look and nearly swallowed her tongue. Clad in a flannel shirt and jeans he had the look of a country boy, fresh off the farm. The glint in his green eyes told her otherwise. He may have came off a farm back in the day but the man in front of her was shrewd and gave the air of fuck-the-world. The fact that he was gorgeous only helped sell that to the world. '_This man dried my tears? A complete stranger?'_

She suddenly felt the need to say something, to thank him so he could go back to his life and she could go back to that house and have a bonfire with His stuff. She fully intended to send him on his way when she opened her mouth and something completely different came out.

"Can I buy you lunch?"


End file.
